The choice weapon for a majority of gamers… the PC mouse.  Enter 1972, the invention of the first ball mouse… 38 years later and the rest is history.  Since then the PC mouse is probably the most popular weapon of choice before or next to the widely over-produced AK47.  For years gamers have been making jello out of enemy skulls, controlling hordes of minions to do your bidding as the hand of god, clicking, dragging and pretty much any other motion we could think to replicate with simple hand movements and 2 buttons.

Let’s dive into this review and cover how the Sidewinder X8 preforms on the battlefield.

Aesthetics
The sidewinder looks great paired with the sidewinder X6 keyboard. They both have that very edgy, smooth glossy black, wow that looks expensive, appearance. The light up features on the mouse glow red only when adjusting the mouses settings. I can respect that as it’s a wireless mouse, so less power out, more power saved. It has a nicely placed tiny LCD display between where your thumb rests and your index finger. It lights up to display the DPI setting you changed it to. A small feature to note is it has removable feet with a choice of 3 different surfaces to attach per your preference. The X8 is no girly mouse in any aspect; especially in size. I have fairly average size “man” hands and I can honestly say this is the most comfortable mouse I’ve had to date. The size is perfect to fully rest my fingers at full length of the mouse buttons; without curling my fingers to keep them hanging over or from resting my palm off the back of the mouse itself. This is important for the career gamer who spends a lot of time interacting with their peripherals; as it helps to prevent the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome! If the way it looks doesn’t win you over then the comfort and functions included will. If you happen to be of the female persuasion or just have smaller hands you may want to keep mouse shopping. The X8 and it’s older sister X5 mice both are a little larger than your average mouse. In most cases bigger isn’t always better, in my case and probably most guy gamers this mouse fits just right, so for aesthetics I’ll give the X8 a solid 8/10.

Functions
The main feature of the X8 is it’s wireless connectivity. It comes with a USB 2.4GHz Wireless dock with a wire attachment for play and charge! I love the play and charge cable. When my X8 starts running low on power it displays a battery lighting up on the LCD screen. I can quickly unravel the charge cable from the dock and connect it to the mouse and keep killin’! Best part about this is like with the X6 keyboard removable numspad the cable is magnetic! I rarely look to even attach the cable. All I usually do is unravel about 1 foot of the 2.5 feet and roll the front of my mouse over the connector to clip it into place.

Of this sidewinder’s 12 buttons, 7 are programmable. Just like the keyboard counterpart this is great for gaming. The five main buttons (back, forward, left, right click, mouse wheel click) can me customized for each application specifically. The mouse wheel also has a left – right tilting click. This works great in browsing the web but when I game it works wonders when programmed to do a quick 180 turn. Who’s got my back? I got my back. Now if I get caught off guard it’s my own fault…

X8 has one additional button on the back which is the X8’s ’sidewinder’ button. This one seems to be programmed already to open whatever Windows environment games menu. I have yet to really put it to use; however, it’s not in the way as my hand covers it so no harm no foul on this one.

Finally my last point to cover is the 3 DPI adjustment buttons I mentioned earlier. These can be programmed to quick swap between 3 settings. Mine are currently set for… 3500dpi, 1500dpi and 750dpi. Stock settings are 4000, 1000, 500. The real high setting like 4000 is crazzzzzzzzzzzzy fast. I can’t even operate at this DPI setting. I have found use in at max 3500 for quick spray’n'pray missions when using small accurate, quick fire-rate weaponry like SMGs. 1500 is my default setting I use for browsing and casual gameplay (note: Your monitor’s resolution may be key in finding the setting right for you, I am running at 1980×1050 resolution). Lastly, the low setting… 500 is really slow. I moved it up to 750 a smidge faster but this works great for long range sniping missions, AWPer’s rejoice (although for me, I scout with no scope, suckers! Using AWP always feels like I’m cheating…). I don’t use this as much as I thought initially.

With a great list of functions available in such a small-crowded peripheral and the design / buttons do not hinder this device at all. For these reasons I can not rate down the X8’s functioning, so I’ll give it a 10/10

All in all this mouse provides additional functionality you wouldn’t have in your standard optical gaming mouse. The layout of buttons in relation to the large-handed-populous of gamers are great, caveat being you women/carnies out there complaining need to look elsewhere the X8 was not made with you in mind! The customizations well-known to the line of sidewinders is true with this edition and every hardcore gamer / modder can appreciate the effort that Microsoft put into making a really comfortable piece of hardware whilst loading it with great functions. You can tell when the designer was thinking of how to design this mouse they started from the hand and worked around it. For it’s good points it has very few bad ones to go along with. The X8’s price was large at the time of it’s release, but has since dropped to around 70-80. I got mine from eBay for $47/free shipping NIB! Can’t beat a bargain, but even if you can’t find one this is one mouse you cant beat.

Microsoft Sidewinder X8 — 9/10